I'm now a big fan of making my own desserts.
Having spent considerable time, effort and money on improving my health and getting rid of parasites and candida from my body, I'm even more fussy about what I put in it.
I've got a cracking recipe for raw food cheesecake that's both wheat-free and dairy-free and tastes great (to me anyway, and that's what counts), and I've got a raw chocolate fondue recipe from Catherine Carrigan at www.totalfitness.net(available for free on her website in a article called 'Comfort Food for Healthy People - that'd be me then).
At last year's Real Food Festival I bought some organic chocolate powder as I was running low on it at home.
It had sat in my cupboard for a while and was near its use-by date, so I decided to attempt to create a healthy, raw, chocolate brownie.
I asked around for recipes from friends and researched online as well as in the healthy cooking books I have (Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, and The Lifefood Recipe Book by David & Annie Jubb).
I found plenty of recipes of varying complexity. I settled on one of my own creation:
cacao powder, raw honey, hazelnuts, desiccated coconut, raisins.
First I processed the hazlenuts first, then added them to raisins, desiccated coconut and choc powder. I didn't use the raw honey after all, as the choc powder I used had sugar in it already.
I'll be using unsweetened raw cacao powder from www.detoxyourworld.com next time.
I blended it all together with around 6oz water, placed it into Pyrex dish and froze for an hour and 20 mins. Here's the pic of it:
And here's a pic of a slice of it:
It came out a bit too cold and a bit dry. Not as sweet as normal, though still pleasant.
I'll give it another go, though next time I'll process the nuts (hazelnuts or walnuts) with choc powder and dates first.
I'll then add some coconut oil plus the water that the raisins were soaked in.
I may need to add honey as the powder I’ll be using will be raw and unsweetened.
I may also add a little desiccated coconut (not too much as I think it makes the brownie mixture too crumbly), though this is optional.
Lastly I'll add raisins in after everything else is processed so they aren’t as chopped and shredded as everything else.
Alternatively, I may leave out raisins and blend the mixture with dates instead. I think this may create a stickier, firmer brownie mix.
The healthy dessert experiments continue. I've found a very simple recipe for making your own ice-cream using goat's milk (http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/clay92.html), so I'll give that a go using raw, organic, biodynamic milk or yoghurt I get from Holly Park Organics, Hollypark North Lane, Hastings, East Sussex, TN35 4LX, 01424 812229.
Stay well and happy.
Cris
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